Nestled in a laneway near Elizabeth and Londsdale streets, queer underground nightclub, Hugs + Kisses, opened its doors in 2010 and for nine years it was a supportive space for LGBTIQ+ people to get together and make it their own. Music, dancing, liberation, open-minds and self-expression were all welcome. In January 2019, it closed its doors for the last time.
Photographer Nik Epifanidis was at Hugs + Kisses on its closing night. Set up outside the club, he spent the evening taking portraits of who was there, capturing the mood and tone that was present in the crowd. Only able to spend a few minutes with each person, Epifanidis asked them to focus on the emotion they wished to convey to the camera. The result of that is the Love, Hugs + Kisses exhibition, which acts as a compendium to a documentary on the club that is scheduled to be released in 2020, and begin presented as part of the Midsumma Festival.
While not personally connected to Hugs + Kisses, Epifanidis understood the importance and relevance of this venue closing, and was keen to be involved in the project when the film makers of the documentary made contact. "I hadn’t been to Hugs + Kisses, but I've always been intrigued by
counter culture and how this is communicated. There is usually a good reason these
places come into existence that speaks about people feeling the need to show themselves and be heard in a way they are unable to in the current mainstream," he says.
Aaron Walker's latest exhibition, presented as part of Midsumma, looks into the world of drag and what it represents. #Dragformation
aims to capture and document what 'drag' is, what it means, and who the
people who engage with it are through before and after portrait photography
of the performer.
Walker's conceptualisation for this project came through photographing the performers of a drag show backstage. "As I was
shooting, what really struck me more than the show was the
transformation process itself. After the show I knew I had to see if I
could capture this on film in a way that needed to be a natural
everyday look but also fabulous and spectacular. That’s when I chose to
use a diptych to convey the effect of the drag artist’s look and persona
from the street to the stage," Walker explains.
